A thoughtful discussion and sometimes-passionate plea for civility and consideration in conversation.
In this era of social media and increasing political and cultural polarization, we need to think more about how and why we converse with one another.
Headlee—who hosts the daily news show On Second Thought on Georgia Public Broadcasting and has been involved in radio broadcasting since the late 1990s—debuts with a book offering different moves and steps to the oft-heard music of the self-help genre. Serious readers will be glad to see the text is not chockablock with bullet points and other graphic favorites (and clichés) of the genre. Instead, the author delivers well-researched and careful analysis of how and why we talk with one another—our strengths and (myriad) weaknesses. Throughout, Headlee surveys psychological and neurological research, reminding us, among other things, that we are not good at multitasking, that areas of our brains light up when we talk about ourselves, and that we have the attention span of a goldfish. The first half of her text is roughly a theoretical foundation of the second, which offers her “specific strategies” for conversing. She suggests that we keep conversations short, eschew preaching, recognize and acknowledge the limits of our knowledge, and listen. Most significantly, she continually returns to her theme of empathy, a factor missing in so many conversations. We are so eager to tell our stories that we neglect to listen attentively to what the other person is saying. Occasionally, Headlee falls victim to platitudes: conversation is like a river; we need to be “fully present” in our conversations, etc. Still, she is appealingly self-deprecating, repeatedly discussing and dissecting her own conversational failures and disasters, and she alludes to a range of authorities on the topics.
A thoughtful discussion and sometimes-passionate plea for civility and consideration in conversation.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-266900-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper Wave
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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